Looking through boxes that were in storage for many years, I found a scrap of paper on which I had written a prayer, possibly for inclusion in a future story. I don’t remember. I threw it into the large black trash bag along with the rest of the detritus. Then I had lunch and did other errands, while the prayer I had casually thrown out literally preyed, and prayed, on my mind. It’s only a scrap of paper, I told myself, and went on going through boxes.

Then I remembered the old Sufi tale, or it remembered me, where an old man finds a soiled scrap of paper on the road on which is written the name of God. He picks it up reverently, kisses it, and takes it home. He cleans it and perfumes it, and gives it a place of honor in his Qu’ran. That night, as he slept, God spoke to him in a dream, saying, “O man, as you have honored My name and purfumed it, so shall your name be perfumed and honored among My faithful beloveds.”

Honestly, I wept at the thought of it, and dug through the trash bag until I found the paper. This is what was written:

“O God, Bestow Thy mercy on Thy poor servants, and provide for us a right course of action.”